Guillemots @ The Liquid Rooms
August 23rd, 2007This was the last of my Edinburgh festival gigs for SkinnyFest mag, so thank you to them for getting me into lots of wicked gigs – this one was by far my fave. My only observation would be that the lead singer made almost no contact with the audience (making it pretty hard to get face shot), as he was concentrating so hard on controlling all of the instruments surrounding him. Most of those in the crowd seemed to be nodding their heads appreciatively, but I’m sure it would have made a massive difference had the band been a little more audience aware. Again, the music was incredible, which is of course what it’s all meant to be about. Having been photographing unsigned bands for that long I was under the illusion that these signed acts were a different beast – I’m being regularly disappointed though, Jamie T, and these guys just weren’t as polished as I thought they would be. I think the enthusiasm of unsigned acts makes a big difference, this lot shouldn’t forget that.
The photographers enclosure was very very narrow and the crew had placed an enormous impassable hard-case in the middle of it. Basically this meant that the photographers had to choose which side they wanted to photograph from before the band took to the stage. Totally at a loss after asking the opinion of several members of the audience, I had a word with someone from the crew to find out where lead singer would be performing from for the first three songs. After a little think, I chose my spot. A little worryingly the vast majority of the photographers had chosen the other side, so it was just little me and another female photographer crossing our fingers. My thinking had paid off, and half-way through the second song all of the other photographers had managed to battle their way round the other side and were all now vying for the spot which I was occupying. Being a generous little lass, I gave it up and moved over, I’d already taken plenty of shots by then and wandered off to get some ‘artsy’ angles from elsewhere. Another learner.
